Crane: A Scarecrow Fan Fiction Chapter Two
by Daniel Trump
Summary: Jonathan Crane faces the reality of his tortured past while planning a brutal attack against Gotham City's elite. Featuring Bane.


Crane Chapter Two: A Scarecrow Fan Fiction

by Daniel Trump

I write novels. I make money when you - the reader - buys one of my novels. I write fan fiction for free. If you like the fan fiction please buy my new novel, Impressions of Suburbia. Thank you so much. Here is the link:  dp/B07RPXPQPC \- it's a big, dangerous, fucked-up horror/slasher novel. Please check it out. Thanks.

Something felt wrong. Jonathan Crane woke up with someone smacking him on the shoulder. "Wake up, Jonathan!" a voice said. A male voice - someone with authority. He wondered how the hell someone had arrived in his bedroom while he slept.

"What?" he asked. He got up. He had just escaped from Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane - and the place had lived up to the hateful, prejudiced name, being a place of terror and despair, sitting there, for days or years, doing nothing, learning nothing, taking his pills, waiting for release. They clarified that they wouldn't ever release him. Bam. Total bullshit. He responded by busting out, ignoring everyone, and planning to get revenge on everyone that had wronged him.

He looked up to see a middle-aged man. "Hi," he said. "I'm Burt Woke, your foster father while you're still under eighteen."

"What the hell?" Crane asked. He was forty-one years old. "How old do you think that I am?" he asked.

"Fourteen," Burt Woke said. "You need to start a great adventure today."

"Standing up to the moral authority?" Crane asked.

"No," Burt Woke said. "High school."  
"Jesus! I only poisoned the water supply. You can't punish me like this."

"Um, okay," Burt Woke said. "Have fun with those role-playing games. Try not to get too much into demon worshiping though, okay?"  
"Yeah," Crane said. "Okay. I'll go to high school. Do I look the part?"  
"Yeah," Burt Woke said. "Bruce Wayne is the leader of the geeks at the high school. You might want to meet him and make friends. He'd love to be a part of your life. He helps anyone who doesn't have parents."

"Great," Crane said. "I'll consider it."

Crane got up and looked in the mirror. He looked fourteen. He laughed. He went to his desk and began to work on the computer. He had fifty-four minutes until high school.

He wondered what cruel god had given him this fate. He had to go to high school! He considered turning himself in and going back to the asylum - people would be nicer at least. He grabbed clean clothes, showered, and quickly ordered the parts to design a fear gas and dispenser. He found a computer program which would give him icons in his mind and tell him his health and allow for easier use of abilities.

He was the mentally ill person, the crazy person, the Scarecrow of legend. He knew that he saw the world differently. He saw the world as a terrifying place full of nightmares and the worst experience imaginable. The suffering of the masses daily wracked him with pain and indecision. The normals, meanwhile, saw the world as a place of happiness and opportunity, a land in which they could do something great.

Jonathan walked out the door and started to walk to Gotham Central, the high school within walking distance of his big apartment in the middle of Gotham City. They were busing kids in from the Narrows, the bad area of town. Jonathan noticed Oswald Cobblepot on the ground, picking up some pieces of paper and putting them into his backpack. They had been knocked down by some asshole who had no idea with whom he was fucking.

I did the school day in a haze, listening to boring teachers talk about hope and respect and how to be a good, solid citizen. I walked through those halls, looking at those people, those happy people, with their skirts and tank tops and preppie clothes and their friendship bracelets and devices to play mobile games on and their smiles and their sex - the ridiculous amount of sex that the pretty people had and that I did not have. I lived through that miserable haze of nothingness until the final bell rang to let us go home. I went home to the penthouse apartment in downtown Gotham City and lay there, on the bed, doing nothing.

"Hey," a voice said. A female voice. "I noticed you online. You're a villain."

"Yeah," I said. "What, are you going to beat me up? Arrest me?" I turned around to see the most beautiful woman that had ever been in the history of my existence. She had dark hair and the most angelic face imaginable. She looked to permanently pout and yet had a sudden, strange assertion of character - she had strength to her, strength that meant that she believed in herself and anyone connected to her.

"No, I don't want to hurt you. I want molly."

"Molly?" I asked. "Yeah, I can make it from you. I found a formula online."

"Good," she said. "I want forty. Forty pills."

"Good," I said. I went to wash my hands and put on some rubber gloves and began the work to make drugs that wouldn't kill girls or let them get knocked out and raped. I built the drugs from ingredients that I conjured with an ability. I built the drugs as if this was a chemical center, making her fifty perfect pills to get her and her pretty friends high. She smiled and hung out as I did it, chatting on the phone with her girlfriends. I made the pills correctly and so that they wouldn't kill anyone or make them overdose or anything. I gave her the forty pills.

"I need muscle," she said. "Call me Little Red Riding Hood."

"Okay," I said. "I know someone." I grabbed my phone and texted Bane. He was in high school, too, but was a little overweight, and no one talked to him. He sat in the corner of every room in high school, writing in a notebook, scribbling ideas, ways he would change the world, and he would die inside when each one failed in turn. He had a neo-Venom that wouldn't kill him or destroy his body, and he wanted to use it. He was fractured, destroyed, and ruined by the pretty and popular rich people. He hated them, the rich, the succcessful, the people who go to charity galas and give away millions of dollars and didn't even blink or notice. He could live a lifetime off of that million dollars. A lifetime.

He called me. "Yeah," he said. "I'll help."

"Good," I said. He showed up in an hour, wearing a tank top and blue jeans. He smiled and left with Red. They came back an hour later. Red smiled.

"We all made a lot of money," she said. "Good job." She gave me a bunch of cash. I put it in the desk drawer.

"What else should we do?" I asked. "I know a place that needs help. Their thieves' guild needs help."

"Good," Red said. "In the meantime, I've gotta get high and hang out with beautiful people. Later, studs." She walked out of the door, and I died inside.

"Thieves Guild?" Bane asked. "That sounds promising. Anything to steal from the rich assholes in charge."

"And give to the poor?"  
"No, to fucking keep it for myself and my loved ones," Bane said. "Fuck that. We need a piece. And to stand up to the corruption at the top, the Waynes of the world."

"Ah, the Waynes of the world," I said. "Yes, we can stand up to them."

We planned for about an hour, coming up with plans within plans and analyzing everything that the Bat could do to stop us. We showed up at a meeting of the CEO's of several companies, showing up to plan a new golf course within Gotham city limits. It was held in a huge skyscraper in the middle of downtown Gotham City, and we walked over to the skyscraper, me in my Scarecrow gear and Bane with his mask. We looked up at the enormous skyscraper, looked at each other, and nodded. We had this.

We walked in and looked at the security. The security guard, a thin, tall man with dark hair, earrings and tattoos, smiled and casually started to press the alarm button. I shot fear gas at him - he collapsed onto the ground, writhing. Several other people turned and ran, bolting out of the facility and screaming. We let them run. Two cops ran into the room, and Bane pressed a button on his chest. He immediately grew bigger, his muscles pumping. He punched each male cop and slammed them onto the ground, screaming as he did so.

Robin - the original Robin, sometimes Nightwing, sometimes Batman - flew into the room from gliding outside the skyscraper. He threw a batarang at me, and I dodged. We ran into the elevator and pressed the 80th floor. The elevator buzzed as we went up. We went up to check in with the assholes above everyone, to complain to the guy in charge. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened to reveal Nightwing and Batgirl, smiling, holding handcuffs. They smiled.

"Nice try, Scarecrow," Batgirl said. "I'm smarter than you, and I'm immune to your fear gas. I can't get scared."  
"Anyone can get scared," I said.

"No," Batgirl said. "My boyfriend's here, and he's a rich stud who plays for the Knights. He's the quarterback, and I can't let anything happen to him."

Robin punched me in the head. I fell backwards, groggy, as Bane injected himself again. He threw himself onto Batgirl, grabbing her and grappling with her. She pushed away and kicked him, repeatedly, in the head.

This was going poorly. All this, and we were being beaten up? By Robin and Batgirl? Total. Unbelievable. Bullshit.

I punched Robin in the head. Then I pulled a knife from the small of my back, and I stabbed at him. He backed away before taking more than a tiny scratch. He smiled.

"You got me," he said. He fell to the ground, looking around himself. "Poisoned knife," he said. "I wish...I wish...I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry, Dad. I can't save you. I couldn't save you before, and I can't save you now."

Bane, meanwhile, punched Batgirl and she flew away, landing on her feet. The quarterback walked straight up to Bane and tried to punch him. Bane dodged and punched out the quarterback. The quarterback fell to the ground.

"Don't you know who I am?" he asked. "You have no idea. You can't hurt me. You can't do anything to me. I am the quarterback of a football team, a pro team. I make ten million a year, asshole."

"Hundreds could live on that," Bane said. "I could live a lifetime on that, saving, paying only for essentials, looking for deals."

"You loser," the quarterback said. "You fucking loser."

"Yes," Bane said. "I'm poor. I'm fat. I don't matter to you. I'm not rich, and I never will be. I'm not connected, I'm not beautiful, and I never will be. But one of us matters more than all of you one percenters, with your money and cars and jets and poker tables." Bane grabbed the quarterback and threw him out a window. The window shattered, and the quarterback screamed as he fell to his death below. Batgirl jumped to save him, and I faced a decision.

I acted. I grabbed Batgirl's leg and prevented her from saving him. She fell to the ground, lying there, in front of me, crying. I walked away. We heard screams from below as the quarterback fell to his death. Bane and I grabbed the password to all the money and deleted all traces of the billion dollars they were going to use on a golf course. We virtually burned their fucking money and ruined chances for a golf course. The old white male CEO's stared at us, not comprehending that we were good people standing up to the assholes in charge. They didn't understand. They would never understand.


End file.
